When The Lights Go Out At Christmas
by Lindy
Summary: The first Christmas after Lucy's death, Carter finds himself in a church, and then realizes the light of lives.


The Christmas Lights  
By Lindy  
  
It had been a year. Almost... almost a whole year. He watched as the snow fell like feathers upon the outside world. He sighed, readjusting himself for about the sixth time in five minutes. Not able to contain the clarity in his mind anymore, he turned the card that he held in his hand over again. It was a red card with gold trim around the edges. On the front read, in the same gold cursive, "Wishing you and yours the best these holidays" and on the inside was an excerpt from a Robert Frost poem (although he wasn't sure which one) and a signature of a Ms. Barbara Knight.  
  
Somehow Carter must have managed to forget, or perhaps somewhere, time had healed more wounds than the physical world itself had, but in all of life's plots, he had slipped in remembering this would be the first Christmas without Lucy. Surely, *surely* somewhere before he had thought of it, and there was no sarcasm in that at all. He had thought of almost everything, multiple times, millions of times. The same ideas and thoughts had entered his head so many times since the accident... sooner or later they just stopped coming and reentering his mind. But, when he had opened the Christmas card from Lucy's mother, all the thoughts, or at least just the one, flooded back into his mind like black ink on a fine silk.  
  
He flipped the card between his index and his middle finger a few times before setting it down on the table and rising to his feet. Quickly, he tossed the card onto the table beside him and, glancing only once back at the card, grabbed his coat from its draped position over the banister and headed out the door on foot.  
  
Chicago was always cold in the winter. Sometimes, Carter thought, it was comforting. "There's something to be said for a coexistence between man and snow," he had told Lucy once. Today was definitely one of those days when the snow didn't bother him. In fact, he desperately needed something to keep him awake and focused. Shuffling down the street, his hands buried deep within the pockets of his black overcoat, he stepped quickly and light down the lamplight-lit streets of the festive city.  
  
The church was perhaps the grandest thing he had ever seen. A large, stone sided Catholic structure, it was the biggest one in town, but its Christmas Eve services were certainly over by now, since it was already deep into the twilight of Christmas. He paused before entering, admiring the garland wreath that hung over the red door.   
  
He entered the sanctuary, wondering why he had even come at all. Truth be known, he didn't want to be alone this Christmas. Every other year he had worked, but they didn't need him this year. *Should've gone in anyway...* he thought to himself as he sat down in a pew. Shaking of the thoughts that had consumed him, he remembered why he had come, which was to find any sort of peace and solitude he could. He wasn't much for praying, he never had been. His family wasn't like that, not at all: with them, it was always something more personal. Something that you had between God, and only God, and you didn't display it (although, sometimes, Carter figured his family thought it showed some type of weakness, like you couldn't depend on others to help you, which was another reason they hadn't wanted him to be a doctor). But it didn't seem to matter now. He never saw his family anyway, and it looked like this would be another lonely Christmas.  
  
Carter leaned his head back, deciding to take in the view. There were two Christmas trees to the sides of him, both decorated with silver and gold ornaments. As his view ascended to the front of the church, there came more wooden pews, decorated in garland sorts, and as it continued forward, the stain glass seemed to get more complex and beautiful. The organ pipes that lingered like ivy above the pulpit came with an extra feel, perhaps with some memory of childhood behind them, as Carter stared up at them in their wondrous beauty.  
  
"Young man?" the voice interrupted his moment.  
  
Carter turned to face the voice. An elderly man stood in the aisle beside his pew, a warm smile on his face, but a curious one nonetheless. He acknowledged him with a friendly look of inquisition.  
  
"Young man, you've missed the midnight mass. You know this?" he asked, taking a seat beside Carter, but leaving space between the two people.  
  
"Yes." Carter nodded, taking in a breath. "I know, I just came to sit."  
  
"Sit with the Lord, eh?" the man smiled. "Yes, well..." his voice drifted off, as elderly men are known to do. After a moment he spoke. "I'm Jerry." He held out his hand.  
  
"Carter," came the reply, and Carter held out his hand with his one word response to introduction.   
  
"Well, Carter," Jerry said, accepting Carter's handshake. "Seems you and I are the only people in the place. Well-- in the flesh that is!" Jerry chuckled to himself, leaning back and looking at the nativity scene before him. "I'm the custodian here."  
  
"Really? You do this whole church by yourself?" Carter asked, inquiring with the question just because he didn't want to be without company, and he didn't want to be with company in observational silence.  
  
"Well, not entirely by myself." The man nodded, giving his smile. "The man upstairs helps me out a bit. You know, especially with the bathrooms." He chuckled again, filling the sanctuary with an extremely soft muffle. "But enough of me. You tell me about you. By the looks of you, seems you have quite a story to tell, young man."   
  
"Yeah, well..." Carter drifted off for a moment. "You don't wanna hear about me."  
  
"Eh, nonsense. Come now, what's the secret behind your unrest?"  
  
"You really wanna know?" Carter asked, looking straight at the bright blue eyes and red cheeks of the elderly fellow. He nodded earnestly, and Carter took a deep breath. "Well, it's a long story... but here goes."  
  
"... and I ended up here." That was fifteen minutes later. Carter sighed one last time and looked up at the man. "Sorry you asked?" Carter asked, half grinning.  
  
"Holy blazes, kid! That's quite a biography you got on ya." He whistled softly, shaking his head.   
  
"You're telling me," Carter said, watching the old man's expression. "It's some seriously twisted plan."  
  
"Eh, you never know. The Lord works in mysterious ways." The man cocked his head slightly, letting his suggestion flare a little.  
  
Carter shrugged. "I don't know," he said doubtfully. "It's all pretty circumstantial..."  
  
Jerry looked at Carter for a moment, obviously thinking very hard. Carter's smile faded slightly as he watched the old man, wondering if this nice guy was making a judgment about him, like so many others already had. He didn't need that, and Carter was debating on whether to declare the late hour and go home for the night.  
  
"I wanna show you something." Jerry said, and standing up a moment later.  
  
"Show me something? What-- here?" Carter asked, a little hesitant to stray from the public area.  
  
"Yeah, I wanna show you something." Jerry began to walk down the pew, over to a large, ivory door that was off the side of the pulpit.  
  
"Show me what?" Carter slid down the bench. "Hey? Jerry? Show me what?" He stood up, this time stricken by curiosity. "Jerry, show me what?" Hesitantly, he began to follow.  
  
"You'll see." Jerry said, holding the door open for Carter, a mysterious grin spread across his wrinkled face.  
  
Carter gave the custodian a deadpan look. "I knew you were gonna say that," he said, a small grin across his face that alluding to his comedic outlook on this escapade. "I just *knew* you were gonna say that..."  
  
  
Hallways and banisters let to a seemingly endless tunnel of more hallways and banisters. It seemed the staircases would not end, and that they would just keep descending into a forever spiral of more descent.   
  
"Hey, Jerry, hold up." Carter said, hunched over his knee. "This going anywhere?" He took a few breaths, just for the good measure of convincing Jerry he was tired of this trip.  
  
"It sure does." Jerry paused, looking up at Carter. "You tired already? Aw, for crying out loud. I'm an older bloke than you. Can't you pick it up?"  
  
"Yeah, remember that little accident I told you about?"  
  
"Aw, pish posh. It's only there if you think it is." Jerry said, flipping a hand at him before continuing down the stairs again.  
  
"Hey... that's not funny..." He said, slowly following him again. "You try it!"  
  
"No time for stopping. Gotta keep going," the old man said. Carter nodded, although Jerry couldn't see him with his back to younger gentleman, but Carter didn't care. Did he have anything better to do?... maybe... but for some reason Carter was almost propelled to keep going on-- wherever this ongoing journey landed him.  
  
  
  
"This is it." Jerry stood before another door. This one was of a solid oak, Carter knew it well, for most of his grandmother's house was done in the same wooden finish. The door was a little taller than he was, perhaps slightly more than six feet, with a lovely trim. It seemed a little out of place, down here in this cold cellar that had taken him forever to locate. everything else seemed to be dust and old concrete, but this door certainly stood out among the rest of the atmosphere.  
  
"Well?" Carter said, scratching the side of his neck. "Aren't you going to open it?" Jerry smiled and shook his head. "No?" Carter asked. Jerry remained silent. "Well, I came all this way."  
  
"Aw heck, I'm not gonna open it. You are." Jerry looked Carter in the eye. "You say... you say this Knight  
girl--"  
  
"Lucy." Carter stuttered in.  
  
"Right, Lucy. Well, you say she died in February?" Carter nodded, although wondering why the question had arose. "Well..." Jerry nodded, getting behind Carter and pushing him toward the door. "You just think about her for a second."  
  
"Think about her? Jerry," Carter started, getting annoyed with this game, "Either open the door, or I'm-"  
  
"Just think about her! How she looked, who she was, what she said, everything. Just do it!" Jerry said, a slight grumble in his tone.  
  
*You really know how to pick 'em, John.* Carter thought to himself. Taking yet another sigh, he stood in front of the door for a moment. "Well? there's nothing."  
  
"Close your eyes. Concentrate!" Jerry commanded. Carter let out a frustrated breath, muttering to himself slightly. *Think of Lucy, huh? Alright, I'm thinking of Lucy...* For some reason, although he still wasn't sure why, Lucy came to him rather quickly. Somedays he couldn't remember what she looked like, others, her voice was completely gone, stricken from his memory. But tonight he remembered it all: her light, highlighted hair that Carter insisted on butting about because it was much darker naturally than Lucy had it done. Her teenaged voice and appearance, her large blue eyes that didn't take much to shine with enthusiasm... Carter could feel the burn in his eyes at the thought, and sprang them open.  
  
However, no longer was he standing in the passage way to this oak room. Now he was inside. Inside, were a couple dozen small candles, all in rows before some sort of altar. Every ten or so, one was blown out, and as Carter's eyes searched, there was a larger candle at the front of the altar that was also blown out.  
  
"What the-..." Carter started, but he was really too surprised to go on. Behind the candle there was a portrait of a someone- no, a girl-- no, a woman-... Lucy?...   
  
Yes, it certainly was. In fact, the entire altar was made up of pictures of his friend, of childhood, adolescence, baby, and adulthood. "Find what you were looking for?" Jerry asked, leaning in the doorway of this room.  
  
Carter turned around, trying hard to keep his mouth shut. "I-- I wasn't looking for this!"  
  
"Oh, you were." Jerry nodded. "You just didn't know it."  
  
Carter turned around, taking in the scenic conditions once more. "What is this?" he asked, turning about a few more times in confusion and awe.  
  
"This is Lucy's life. Each candle represents a friend, family member... whoever touched her life." He shrugged, approaching Carter. "The ones that are blown out are the ones who have passed on." Jerry had reached Carter at this point, and motioned, by ticking his head, to the candle before the lovely portrait. "That candle is Lucy's."  
  
Lucy's candle. The unlit flame of a life cut short. No-- wait a second-- this was a little weird, wasn't it?...  
  
"You wanna see something else?" Jerry asked.   
  
Carter shook his head. "Jerry, I don't want to see anything else. I mean, this can't be for real? This is-" Something on a podium caught his eye. He stopped midsentence and looked at it for a moment, wondering if this whole show really wasn't a show. He approached it wearily, taking one step at a time until he had reached it. "Oh..." he said, wiping the emotional in his eyes as he picked it up in his hands. The object in front of him was a valentine, the one that had Lucy had dropped the day of the... accident...  
  
"You... she...." Carter didn't know where to begin. He waited a moment, clutching the valentine in his hands. "You know..." he started, once the moment had surpassed him somewhat. "For a long time... I wondered about a lot of things. Everything, really..." he set the valentine back on the stand slowly and carefully, then turned to gaze back over the studio of Lucy. "I didn't know whether I still believed in Heaven, or God, or any of this. And then, when I decided that I did believe in it... I didn't know what kind of a person I was." Carter went back over to Jerry. "I mean, I wondered what would have happened if I had died... would I have gone to Heaven? I didn't know..." Carter shrugged.  
  
"You got over it, though. Didn't you?" Jerry asked, almost rhetorically.  
  
"Somehow." Carter shrugged, shaking his head and glancing about. After a minute he turned back to Jerry. "What was it that you wanted to show me?" he asked, this time ready to follow Jerry to the ends of the earth.  
  
He smiled, patting Carter on the back as he led him to another door that Carter hadn't noticed before. "You know, John Carter, there are no 'accidents.' Wherever you go, God is leading you there."  
  
Jerry's words hit Carter like a brick. He thought about them as he approached the door. Jerry opened it for him, and Carter nodded to the man. "Wait a minute..." Carter said, wheeling around to face Jerry before looking at what the room held, "I never told you my first name-"   
  
But instead he faced the door. "Jerry?" Carter asked, fearstricken. He turned around quickly, and his eyes beheld another sight. It was another room...  
  
It was another room, adorned in candles. There were no walls, or, if there were, Carter couldn't tell the difference, There was just endless space of glowing lights, that trickled on and on, forever and ever. He was breathless, speechless, and completely astounded.   
  
"You see, John Carter..." Carter turned around, this time to see Jerry leaning again in the doorway. "When God turns out a light on earth," he pulled Lucy's candle from behind his back, but this time it was lit. "He turns a light on in Heaven."  
  
And for a long time Carter watched Lucy's candle flicker in Jerry's hands. "Merry Christmas, Lucy," he whispered, gazing out at the sea of candles in a sated understanding that he hadn't had before.  
  
  



End file.
